General African Defense discussion

This is a discussion on General African Defense discussion within the Geo-strategic Issues forum, part of the Global Defense & Military category; The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced it would deploy military forces to both Mali and Guinea Bissau ...

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced it would deploy military forces to both Mali and Guinea Bissau after the leaders of the 15-member regional bloc met on 26 April. In a statement, ECOWAS said its Standby Force would deploy "with immediate effect" to "assist Mali in regaining its unity and territorial integrity," a reference to the Tuareg separatists who have declared independence in the north of the country

Military advisers deployed by the United States in several African countries to help counter Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have "established a good foundation and made initial progress", according to Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Amanda Dory. President Barack Obama announced in October 2011 that around 100 special forces personnel would be deployed to help track down the LRA, which was originally a Ugandan rebel group but has spent recent years preying on remote communities in the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan

Wasn't the whole Kony movement just a big scam generated via a viral video by an NGO who is actually supporting the equally corrupt and brutal regime in Sudan ?

This whole thing smells very fishy. The NGO itself is one with a very shady track record, and hasn't Kony himself been completely out of the picture ( one could say that he's retired ) for quite some time now ?

Wasn't the whole Kony movement just a big scam generated via a viral video by an NGO who is actually supporting the equally corrupt and brutal regime in Sudan ?

This whole thing smells very fishy. The NGO itself is one with a very shady track record, and hasn't Kony himself been completely out of the picture ( one could say that he's retired ) for quite some time now ?

The LRA is not a hoax or a scam, they are terrorists with a seriously evil track record - much like that of the late and unlamented "West Side Boys" of Sierra Leone.
I have no idea what NGO or video you are referring to.

The NGO is called “Invisible Children”. They created a film called ‘Kony 2012’ which has been criticized for exaggerating facts about the scale of the murders and child abductions. Invisible Children claims they are using the same numbers as Human Rights Watch and the UN which, based on past results, could probably constitutes proof that the numbers are exaggerated, but not that it is Invisible Children’s fault.

It is also claimed that the co-founder appears to have suffered a mental breakdown related to the criticism of the film, and was subsequently detained and hospitalized by the San Diego police.

Looks like a thorough analysis of South Africa's situation & the current weaknesses of its military forces. The organisational changes proposed seem sensible. Reinstatement of the traditional unit structure is a good idea.

The main issue is whether the forces will get enough money to meet the demands politicians place upon them. I presume the minister of defence backs this review - but how much clout does she have in the government?

Looks like a thorough analysis of South Africa's situation & the current weaknesses of its military forces. The organisational changes proposed seem sensible. Reinstatement of the traditional unit structure is a good idea.

The main issue is whether the forces will get enough money to meet the demands politicians place upon them. I presume the minister of defence backs this review - but how much clout does she have in the government?

Not sure how she rates in Cabinet but she is not well liked by the professional soldiers.
That said, the person who really needs to be convinced of the merits of the review's eventual recommendations is the Finance minister Pravin Gordhan.

Two Kenyan parliamentary committees are pressuring the government to approve spending for Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) projects. On 23 May the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee (DFRC) backed the KDF request to the treasury for an additional KES19.2 billion (USD226 million) and asked the government to fund a stalled joint project to upgrade the country's microwave communications network. Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Committee (PBC) urged the government to make final payments for a Kenya Navy ship, ordered in 2003

Which would be KNS Jasiri, an OPV ordered in Spain for which payments were suspended by Kenya in 2005. Problem was that the company building it, Euromarine, and in particular its parent company, Anglo-Leasing Finance, is considered to be engaged in fraud by Kenyan authorities, in particular regarding non-delivery, developing pressure to overprice items etc. It's also connected to Sri Lankan businessman Anura Pereira, who is indicted for corruption in Kenya.

Euromarine has in the past years repeatedly tried to get Kenya to make the final payments and take delivery, while the Kenyan MoD considers the ship itself - docked in Spain at 90% completion, partially rusted and defective - not worthwhile. There's some hints at the current round of trying to pressure them into taking it being backed by corruption too.

Not sure how she rates in Cabinet but she is not well liked by the professional soldiers.
That said, the person who really needs to be convinced of the merits of the review's eventual recommendations is the Finance minister Pravin Gordhan.

This article from the Washington Post shows how Africom has established a low-key presence all over the continent. U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa - The Washington Post
As an African myself I find the he naivete and narrow focus of many of the readers comments interesting and disturbing.
American schools need to very seriously upgrade the quality and extent of geography and world history lessons.

The whole continent needs development. Africa has enormous potential. The USA and other nations can assist with the process.

Without (relatively) honest government you are just pissing money away. In most countries, unless you have direct control over project construction and operations, officials will steal 60% to 90% of the funding and/or materials. The problem is rooted in a culture that emphasis loyalty based on familial relationship above all else, the classic expression of which is the African proverb:

Me and my country against the world
Me and my clan against my country
Me and my family against my clan
Me and my brother against my family
Me

Ask any African and they want good government. But when you get into details they just mean ‘my people on the top taking everything, because the others are not entitled to any of it’, if you are lucky. Sometimes it seems that they will not even admit that people from outside of their particular group are actually human, and just want them dead or gone.

To impose an actual solution to the problem would probably involve:

A violent takeover of the countries by the 1st world with enough firepower and an ROE to brutally discourage any armed opposition as required. Brutality will be necessary because you absolutely need to supplant the tribal justice system, which means breaking the power structure. Those in power will surrender it grudgingly, and not at all peacefully. If you are not ready to force the issue, then add a couple more generations to the time required to finish.

Establish and enforce clean government and the rule of law. Then set up an education system that will teach civics so the succeeding generations will maintain the system.

Gradually return the government to the local population in a 2-step-forward-1-step-back fashion, i.e. give back some power, wait for the local powerbrokers to abuse it, then break them with fines and long imprisonments. The likely sequence will be something like:

village bureaucracy

village government

area bureaucracy

village courts

area government

national bureaucracy

national government

area courts

National government

limited oversight

free

Plan on staying there at least 60 to 80 years, until the generations raised in the old way are dead and buried. Those raised in the old way will include any over the age of 12 at the time you finally suppress the old power structure for good, so if you go about it in a the way that it is currently being done, this will more likely be 100 to 140 years, or more.

I don’t think the civilized world has enough manpower to pull this off. And I am sure that there are not enough people you could trust to run it.

So we have to go the slow route, and let societies evolve. Mostly that means helping to establish and maintain a freely elected government with a free press and a fair degree of transparency. It also requires foreign governments to keep out of the country’s politics except to:

Keep the elections free and fair

Keep the government (or at least the cash flow into and out of the country) transparent to limit the theft.

Either maintain a minimum of civil rights or to evacuate to the interveners’ country(s) with full citizenship populations threatened by the local power structure. The current system of temporary refugee camps has evolved in a system of permanent ghettoes and must be ended. To force the neighboring countries where these have been created to absorb the populations will just create bigger problems, including future refugees being violently ejected from neighboring countries or killed in similar future crisis.

Then sit back and let the country make every mistake in leadership that they can come up with. With modern communications the people in power will not be able to conceal their thievery, stupidity, and cupidity, and will eventually be replaced by other groups that have not established a reputation yet. Eventually all the local power groups will be discredited enough that groups that think nationally will rise to power, probably in a couple centuries.